"In the Name of God, Stop This Massacre"

From the Guardian:

On Sunday the Pope issued his toughest condemnation yet of the war in Ukraine, saying the 'unacceptable armed aggression' must stop. Speaking to thousands of people in St Peter's Square for his Sunday blessing, Pope Francis said the bombing of hospitals and other civilian targets was barbaric and had no valid strategic reason.

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Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov writes: 

I have long since run out of words to describe the horror brought by Putin to Ukrainian soil. Ukraine is the land of bread and wheat. Even in Egypt, bread and cakes are baked using Ukrainian flour. It’s the time of year to prepare the fields for sowing, but this work is not being done. The soil of the wheat fields is full of metal – fragments of shells, pieces of blown-up tanks and cars, the remains of downed planes and helicopters. And it’s all covered in blood. The blood of Russian soldiers who do not understand what they are fighting for, and the blood of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians who know that if they do not fight, Ukraine will no longer exist. In its place there will be a cemetery with a caretaker’s hut and some kind of governor general sent from Russia will sit and guard it.

Bread was mixed with blood in Chernihiv as well when Russian bombers dropped “dumb” unguided bombs on a square next to a bread shop. People had lined up outside, waiting to buy some fresh, warm bread. Someone was just leaving the store with a bag of it. Many people died in this bombing raid. Amnesty International has documented this crime committed by the Russian army. Every day the list of crimes grows longer as more and more of Putin’s actions are added to it – the shooting of young volunteers who were carrying food to the dog shelter in Hostomel; the murder of postmen who were delivering pensions to elderly residents in Sumy region; the killing of five people in an attack on the Kyiv television tower. The list goes on and on. We certainly don’t yet know about all the crimes that have been committed, but we will definitely find out about them all, and the list will be presented at a new Nuremberg trial. It doesn’t matter where it takes place. The main thing is that we know who will be judged.

International lawyers have already begun to collect evidence of crimes. Ukrainians are looking forward to the verdict on the murderers and war criminals. But for now, they must survive under the shelling of the Russian army. They spend their nights in basements, in bomb shelters, in bathrooms – the latest advice circulating on the internet tells us that in case of a bombing raid, the safest places to be are inside your cast-iron bath or in interior corridors where there are no windows.

The people of Kyiv have grown suddenly much more attached to their metro, one of the most beautiful and deepest in the world. The metro is no longer a form of transport – it is a haven, like something from an apocalyptic movie. It is covered with signs of permanent presence of non-travelling “passengers” and there is living space everywhere. The station platforms are being turned into cinemas where films are shown for free – children’s films in the morning and films for a wider audience later in the day. Large screens have already been hung or are being hung right now at 14 Kyiv metro stations. There is a constant supply of tea, the internet is already there, but the connection is poor. There are not enough toilets, but people don’t complain about queuing for 40 minutes or more. Everyone waits patiently. They are waiting for the end of the war and the beginning of the trial – a trial that the whole world will have to follow, as the whole world followed at Nuremberg. . . .

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